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Australia, Safe Haven For Political Satire

Tuesday, April 29th, 2008 at 10:02 am by Jami

Reader Aegis sent along this absolutely brilliant clip:

As you can imagine, once police discovered they were victims of the Chasers, they were a might pissed. Eleven of the participants were charged of entering an APEC restricted area without justification including Chasers co-stars Julian Morrow and Chas Licciardello. Miraculously, the NSW Department of Public Prosecutions dropped all charges in the matter.

NSW Director of Public Prosecutions Nicholas Cowdery said the Chaser team scouted the area on September 5 and fully expected they would be denied access when they performed the stunt the next day. In a statement, Cowdery said:

The offence is one of strict liability. Consequently, the defence of honest and reasonable mistake of fact is available to the accused. Put another way, it is a defence to establish, or to raise a reasonable doubt that there existed, an honest and reasonable but mistaken belief in a set of facts which, if they had existed, would have rendered the conduct innocent.

In the cases of all 11 accused I am satisfied that on the evidence presently available the prosecution would not be able to negate, beyond reasonable doubt, the existence of an honest and reasonable (but ultimately mistaken) belief that they would not enter or be taken into the restricted area.

There is no reasonable prospect of conviction and for that reason the prosecutions should not proceed.

Hur? I think he’s saying they didn’t think they could get in so it’s not their fault that they got in. Or something.

Anyway, this is bloody brilliant. I wish the Chasers all the best with their war on everything.

Thanks to Aegis again for the story.

[Via Sydney Morning Herald]

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This entry was posted on Tuesday, April 29th, 2008 at 10:02 am and is filed under Dumb Ass. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

6 Responses to “Australia, Safe Haven For Political Satire”

  1. AvatarJack T Robyn
    Posted: Apr 29th, 2008 at 6:37 pm
    1

    That is pretty much exactly what he’s saying.

  2. Avatarshadebug
    Posted: Apr 30th, 2008 at 4:04 am
    2

    wait… strict liability means you have no defence whatsoever…

    *checks wikipedia*

    yeah… I’m right. Strict liability means you have no defence whatsoever, just existing in that location would be the crime, regardless of how you got there. It’s usually only used for things like speeding tickets where yourn only defence is that the evidence is somehow flawed and what happened didn’t happen

    That or I have to hand in my law degree, which’d be a shame because I’m a week away from my final exams

  3. AvatarWayne
    Posted: Apr 30th, 2008 at 8:43 am
    3

    I saw the original when it happened, very funny! Just shows you what some well-played social engineering can accomplish. If you ever want some more interesting and very scary stories, read Kevin Mitnick’s Art of Deception.

  4. AvatarWanderer
    Posted: Apr 30th, 2008 at 3:03 pm
    4

    AU$230 million of taxpayers’ money spent on security and the Chaser boys penetrate it so easily. Gotta love the Chasers.

  5. AvatarJami
    Posted: Apr 30th, 2008 at 3:08 pm
    5
    Author Comment

    Have they taken on airport security? Seems to me that they could probably get away with a lot.

  6. AvatarAegis
    Posted: Apr 30th, 2008 at 9:03 pm
    6

    they have a website that shows a ton of clips from the show - I vaguely recollect something from an airport back when they started looking for liquids..

    http://www.abc.net.au/tv/chaser/war/

    enjoy :)

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